We appreciate the enormous support that our ABestWeb community has experienced over the many years it has served its members and sponsors. We have decided to exit this business and have placed the property up for sale and we are actively entertaining interest.

In the meantime, community members will be able to read but not post to ABestWeb beginning on Jan. 18.

We want to thank you for your numerous contributions and your ongoing support. If you have any questions, please let us know.

OMG, seriously,
Today was my worst day in history...
I lost money today, from advertising expenses.
Today was so unusually bad, it hurt my soul
Days like this make me want to quit.
Any theories.... I don't understand... is it because today is like a holiday for some people, because of the finale of American Idol????

something is wrong with cj and i have proof. this is as far as i can say.

don't know though if tracking is affected. i guess the official line is, it's not.

My primary merchants EPC is going through the roof, while ours is tanking big time!! The merchants are still getting the sales and we are providing them free traffic!! Can I prove it? NO!!! But I have been talking with several other affiliates of this same merchant and the numbers are speaking for themselves.. I wish I could prove it!! And if you could read the lame reasoning that CJ gave for the lack of sales, you would .

I have been seeing the most bazaar patterns in my clicks over the past 10 days!! Nothing is adding up.. CTR and Conversions are in the tank. I mean dramatically. Links that were converting 1 in 40 clicks are converting 1 in 320 and worse. They work.. I test them.. The clicks are registering. Just that I am not getting credit for the sales!! I wish I knew what waytogo knows!! Something is rotten!! I smell a rat! I big ^%%^^&&(* RAT!!
And as usual, not all affiliates are feeling this crunch... BUT IT IS REAL!!

I have been seeing the most bazaar patterns in my clicks over the past 10 days!! Nothing is adding up.. CTR and Conversions are in the tank. I mean dramatically. Links that were converting 1 in 40 clicks are converting 1 in 320 and worse. They work.. I test them.. The clicks are registering. Just that I am not getting credit for the sales!! I wish I knew what waytogo knows!! Something is rotten!! I smell a rat! I big ^%%^^&&(* RAT!!
And as usual, not all affiliates are feeling this crunch... BUT IT IS REAL!!

Grrrrrrrrrrrr

Is this one merchant in particular? If you have actually done a test purchase or two and they're not tracking, it might be time to name names. You may be surprised to find a trend among affiliates of that merchant.

I have been seeing the most bazaar patterns in my clicks over the past 10 days!! Nothing is adding up.. CTR and Conversions are in the tank. I mean dramatically. Links that were converting 1 in 40 clicks are converting 1 in 320 and worse. They work.. I test them.. The clicks are registering. Just that I am not getting credit for the sales!! I wish I knew what waytogo knows!! Something is rotten!! I smell a rat! I big ^%%^^&&(* RAT!!
And as usual, not all affiliates are feeling this crunch... BUT IT IS REAL!!

Grrrrrrrrrrrr

He who controls the shopping cart controls the reporting. CJ has no contol over the product merchants using batch sales reporting. (most do this) Test case to prove this point. Take the CJ merchant I've sent 4187 very targeted clicks too since Jan 1st. Then place their SAS links on the same page generating 1673 clicks since the end of March. All natural SERP traffic landing on www.ecomcity.com/bonsai.htm

Their AM is concerned as they say they can no longer afford Google, 123search, knoodle & Overture PPCSE costs. She agrees something is very fishy as she has no other affiliate in her stable even remotely having such a quality affiliate promotion page. NOT ONE sale from CJ or SAS on 5980 clicks. Here comes the volunteering to test purchase on a CJ and SAS coded link from my page. Batch merchant ... both sales show up in the report. Is this a miracle? I doubt it as I they reversed the CJ sale, and left the SAS one there to remind me to keep sending that buying traffic.

The kicker was the merchant converted at a 1/25 click basis for years till I announced them as a CJ success story here at ABW a few years ago. Made hundreds per month when they just sold bonsai trees. Now they only have to sell coupons and work with shady incentive/reward loyality type sites. Funnier still is they complain the one-liner PPCSE Ads only convert at a 1/50 basis giving away hints all affiliate traffic does at least one sale per 100 clicks. Someone stole 60 sales from my account since Jan 1st. They claim ignorance, but refuse to pull their sales logs to find any with the affiliate ID# 910 on them. Either a merchant washing legit sales by claiming their PPCSE Ads were involved or someone running a script to swap ID# 910 or my SAS # with some other ID# account during the batch process. Wouldn't be the first time for this scam as every network has a buried history of this type activity.

Webmaster's... Mike and Charlie

"What have you done today to put real value into a referral click...from a shoppers viewpoint!"

Is this one merchant in particular? If you have actually done a test purchase or two and they're not tracking, it might be time to name names. You may be surprised to find a trend among affiliates of that merchant.

You are right, but before I name names, I will say that a few sales have trickled in. It's like a few sales make it through and most don't. I have not made a test purchase in the past 10 days, so I can not be too acertive.

However, if you look at the top 3 shoe merchants and look at their 7 day EPC vs their 3 month EPC, you will see a substantial margin of growth. Now, if you should happen to be in the shoe business, is your trends similar or?
In my case, mine is tanking bigtime. And several other shoe affiliates are stating similar declines.

For what it's worth... You have it. Yes, it might just be my turn to stink. Time will tell I suppose.

However, if you look at the top 3 shoe merchants and look at their 7 day EPC vs their 3 month EPC, you will see a substantial margin of growth. Now, if you should happen to be in the shoe business, is your trends similar or?

If you are going to play in the shoe business, you must follow seasonal trends and the weather patterns that affect the seasonal trends in different parts of the country/world.

By March or April, sandals are selling well in the Gulf Coast states, but boots are still in demand up north. Are you making sure all of these needs are covered in your marketing plan? Or are you trying to sell boots to people who want sandals?

New styles hit the shelves in spring and again in late spring. When the department stores get new inventory, online sales are likely to slow as the customer is able to get her size/color at her local Macy's instead of turning to the web. It is later in the season when the department stores have sold through the pitiful size runs of certain hot items that customers turn to the web.

A department store would rather sell 30 of 30 pair in a month than sell 100 of 120 pair in two months. I have never understood this buying philosophy, but "turn and burn and don't get caught with a lot of shoes you have to mark down" is the prevailing mindset here. I will take a 100/120 sellthrough and happily mark the last 20 pair down 30% to get rid of them.

A smart Internet shoe marketer keeps up with the trends when the new styles hit. What is selling very well? What is the sleeper for that season? The reason for this, is that you can bet your bottom dollar that the department stores have underbought only to leave their late-season customers turning to the web to get their shoes. By the time the hot items emerge, the manufacturers are out of them and are at least 5 months in getting more to the market if they decide to keep the style alive. Often shoe styles are a one-season item and when they are gone they are gone. By now you should know what is hot and you should be pounding those styles as hard as you can on PPC, SEO, SEC and TWA.

You can stick some links up to generic shoe pages and make some money, or you can be smart about it and be a real marketer and make a lot of money. It takes work but the rewards are there.

Thank you for sharing the wisdom. Your post was inspiring to say the least. In the past, as far as PPC search advertising is concerned, I have tried to cover all brands available from my merchants. I have not put forth the effort to try and emphasize what's hot and back off what's not. As far as seasonal, I am running a sandals campaign and perhaps mistakenly have backed off boots. What you say makes great sense. Basically, I just try and run everything all year long, hoping to appeal to all. I need to zero in!!

Thank you again for sharing!!

By the way: in terms of marketing, what is TWA and SEC? I do the SEO and the PPC...

airstrip

Last edited by Airstrip; May 26th, 2006 at 05:48 AM.
Reason: Question,,